The Philadelphia Regional and Independent Stock Exchange (PRAISE) will enable a wide range of private investors to invest safely in Philadelphia to build genuine wealth and security. 

will gather capital of all kinds for regional ecological development.

Everyone, rich and poor, has some type of capital required — skills, tools, time, topsoil, property, cash.  PRAISE pools this capital, defines program RFPs, issues bonds and negotiables, selects contractors, provides grants and loans to the businesses described below, monitors program progres, redeems bonds by issuing business notes, defines the transferability of bonds.

This Mutual Enterprise System retains and expands wealth to provide jobs that clean the environment.  It converts capital into harmless and beneficial efforts.  It provides basic benefits for all, and special benefits for investors.  It transfers technological and economic power to lower-income residents, building relevant skills.  Public benefit is personal benefit, whether we're rich or poor.

PRAISE is different from a Community Development Corporation in several ways:
• Investments may be made with capital other than dollars
• Repays investors and donors
• Repays with regional bonds/notes redeemable for services and goods
• Pays half of interest in advance
• Elects seats on the Exchange by community rather than by purchase or appointment
• Businesses are selected which rely on technologies manageable by neighborhoods rather than centralized expertise/machinery, and which reduce pollution
• Businesses are selected which transfer economic power to community, rather than agencies which help the poor stay poor
• Relies on community-based market indicators set by the Securities and Ecologies Commission (SEC) rather than narrower profit/loss measures
• Monetizes tools, skills, crops, soil, volunteer hours, labor hours, development rights transferred (incentive for buyer as well as seller), negawatts, restraint of childbirth, locally-made warranty
• Regulates transfers of negotiables/bonds among the PRAISE programs as services available

Samples of subordinate programs include:
• Philadelphia Fund for Ecological Living (PhilaFEL) to make tax-deductible donations to jumpstart green industries within lowest-income neighborhoods, directly to reduce costs of heating, cooling, healing, eating http://greenjobsphilly.org/static_philafel.php
• Securities and Ecologies Commission (SEC) to assess genuine economic progress, based on ecological and social justice indicators. http://greenjobsphilly.org/static_sec.php
• Patch Adams Free Clinic http://patchadamsclinic.org to establish member-owned genuinely nonprofit
• Local currencies such as Ithaca HOURS http://paulglover.org/hours and Time Banks http://timebanks.org, neighborhood currencies, and sector currencies like MediCash and ArtCash.

PRAISE will be guided by an elected board of directors subject to referenda initiated by investors holding one vote each.  Management is organized so that community has direct intervention, expertise is rotated rather than entrenched, new expertise develops reflecting ever-changing circumstances, prime incentive is service.

Problem

Neither Wall Street nor government are able or willing to relieve growing disparities and suffering. Philadelphia hosts 350,000 unemployed, 250,000 uninsured, 60,000 hungry children, 40,000 vacant lots, 42% dropout rate, the United States’ highest urban poverty rate and the world’s highest incarceration rate. In the midst of great need and great change, current financial institutions stand as helpless as sumo wrestlers on a basketball court.

Solution

We will gather capital of all kinds for regional economic development that moves beyond charity to ownership, by involving the traditionally marginalized in creating both businesses and nonprofits which meet their immediate needs. With the collaboration of PRAISE, the urban poor will build and own their own food, insulation, housing, health care and financial mutual aid systems. I have created such models in Philadelphia and elsewhere. Such progress benefits the macroeconomy as well, since national markets emerge from local innovation. As well, the stability of national currencies depends on the vitality of microeconomies. PRAISE will be unique insofar that it focuses on investment that repairs neighborhoods and ecologies; monetizes community credits and in-kind capital; serves immediate needs with primary dedication to future generations.

Example

The Philadelphia Insulation Factory (PIF) will retrofit one of Philadelphia's 700 abandoned factories, to manufacture cellulose insulation. This employs least-skilled residents, who then install the insulation in their own homes and neighborhoods to dramatically reduce utility costs. These household savings can therefore be spent in the local economy instead, potentially to revive neighborhood businesses, or to meet other unmet needs.

Marketplace

Peers: Local sustainability movements, Transition Towns, Sustainable Business Networks, Buy Local campaigns. After consultation with me several years ago, the Lancaster (PA) Stock Exchange has begun. Competitors are any financial actors lacking dedication to the planet and to the dignity and capability of all persons.